I've never really done much with horse races except risk a couple of pounds on the Grand National - mainly based on whether the horse names ring a bell with the event chart. But this morning my husband said he was going to place some bets, and as a bit of fun I said I'd take a look at the astrology. The chart for the first meeting meant nothing to me, so I was going to give up, but he persuaded me to take a look at the event chart for the next race and I found that chart really interesting.

He was backing a horse called Vinnie Red, and I noticed that the chart had Moon applying to the conjunction of Mars on an Aries MC - but then he mentioned another horse in the same race called Red Spinner - and then two more that had symbolism in their names that connected with the themes of the commencement chart. So for this I ended up drawing noon charts for births of all the horses - I hadn't realised before that this information is easily available on the internet. Red Spinner has Venus at 24 Aries natally, connecting with the planetary activity on the event MC at 24 Aries. I told him to back that instead. He didn't, but I did, and it came in at 11-2. (Chart below)

He asked me to look at some other races, but I found most of them uninteresting because they didn't have strong planetary activity around the angles. Instead I looked for races that were run at times and locations when something dramatic was happening around the angles of the chart. He ended up placing his own bets and I chose two more for myself. In one my horse lost - the winner was a horse I hadn't considered which was having its birthday today, the other came in at 10-1: Milansbar, Kelso 2:50. This was also having a birthday, and a Venus return today, which was prominent on the MC of the commencement chart.

Maybe I've been lucky with 2 out of 3 at good odds - I had a £1 round robin which made £120; but what I thought was worth concentrating on was only the races that started at times with prominent planetary themes, and I feel sure this is a good way to go. I've placed the bi-wheels below - I didn't know anything about the horses or odds, or how they perform under different conditions, etc, I only took note of the astrology. If anyone can suggest where I went wrong with the one I missed I'd be very interested.

One thing that struck me as very strange was that almost all of the horses I looked at today were Aries by Sun sign. I looked at 13 horses for 3 races, focusing mainly on those with interesting names. Of those, 10 horses were Aries, and three were having birthdays. The horse I didn't consider that won the race I lost was also having a birthday. Is that as weird as I think it is (or is there a breeding season for race horses that means they are nearly always born around this time of year?)

Another thing I realised, almost all of the horses I looked at were from Ireland - to save time, because all this was done in about 40 mins, I ended up drawing noon charts for them all for the same locality: Dublin - just because it was easy, and I wasn't taking anything too seriously. Is that the norm for British race horses, that they are nearly always bred in Ireland? I found it easy to find the birthday for each horse online, but it was too time-consuming for me to try to find out the exact location, so gave up on that. Here's the charts and reasons for my selections.

1) Bangor, 1:50 - Red Spinner: natal Sun trines Jupiter on Asc and natal Venus culminates on the MC, which has prominent activity. Name depicts this, as does natal Mercury on MC (I connect spinning wheels with Virgo/Mercury). (My 2nd choice would have been Red Vinnie, which came in 2nd - the noon chart also makes good connections with the event).

2) Kelsor, 2:50 - Milansbar: solar return, Venus return picked out on MC of event chart. This Venus is very dignified, so I didn't worry about the name of the horse after seeing this.

3) Kelsor, 1:45 - Endeavour: this was my last selection and the one I got wrong. Chose the horse because its natal Sun and Venus is prominent on the MC of the chart, and its natal Moon is sextile Jupiter on asc of commencement chart. Still don't understand why it didn't win.

The horse that did win was Captain Brown - bi wheel below shows it was having a solar return, but otherwise nothing too great or bad about the chart. Even in hindsight, I wouldn't have been able to change my choice resting on astrology alone. Can anyone see something I missed?

Last edited by Deb on Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

Deb, I will look at the charts later, but you asked a number of questions I can help with.

Yes, there is a birth season for racehorses - early in the year. If a race is for 3 year-olds for example, the age is not calculated from the actual date of birth of the horse. Instead a fictional birth date of 1st January is used for all horses born in that calendar year. So, the earlier in the year a horse is born, the older (and so stronger and more developed, and longer in training) the horse is compared with one born later in the year. Of course, the breeder does not want to get it wrong and have a birth in late December! In consequence, most horses are born in February to April.

The online information will usually give the country of birth, in England the largest concentration of studs is around Newmarket, but other areas have quite a few. I think the West of Ireland is a major horse breeding area, but again there are other areas. As we do not have exact time of birth, the location does not matter much.

However, most mares give birth in the early hours of the day 1am to 4am very approximately. This seems to be an evolutionary adaptation as predators are less likely to be about at that time and so it is safer for the foals who are very vulnerable for the first few hours after birth. Consequently, I usually approximate birth time at 3am - just to get a slightly better Moon position.

I just realised one of the charts was repeated twice, so I've corrected that.

Saturnhead:I noticed that theme was very strong too, especially around 1:45 - 2:15; but "Captain" brown - I just never thought of how that has solar symbolism too. Still, I do think that the astrological connection was stronger for the chart I chose, based on the limited information I had. Without exact times we are going to get so much help, and I realise I would never have called that one right. (Now I think the strong Mars connections to the angles did not help).
I'd like to repeat this experiment and see how it averages out over time. How do we know the times and locations for races next Saturday in advance? Are they published on the internet?

GB: thanks for your interest and useful information. I got the birth dates by running the name of the horse, followed by horse, in Google - so for Red Spinner "Red spinner horse". The results always include something like "Age: 5 (Foaled March 27th, 2010)" - so I hope I am not being stupid in assuming that the date tells us when the horse was born. I noticed that of the other three horses one was an Aquarius and one was a Gemini - I think the other was a Taurus. I couldn't find any information on country of birth - could you show me a link that provides that? The advice about doing an early chart rather than a noon chart is very useful, thanks.

Last edited by Deb on Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:40 pm; edited 1 time in total

Ah no - I've already corrected that Graham. I made a note about this in my previous post. It wasn't the one I referred to this morning. That now shows in my original post, but try refreshing your browser as it may still show the wrong chart otherwise.

I'd like to repeat this experiment and see how it averages out over time. How do we know the times and locations for races next Saturday in advance? Are they published on the internet?

I use http://www.racingpost.com/ and believe Thursday evening would be the earliest declaration for all of Saturday's runners. Race times are usually up by mid-week._________________If it's not astronomically true, it's not astrologically true.

For birth times and locations I start with http://www.racingpost.com/ and then click on 'Cards' in the menu bar. I then go to the day and course of interest and click on the race time.

For example Sunday 22 March at Market Rasen, and look at the 15.05. This gives us all the runners (at this stage). If you click on the name of a horse you get the birth details and a lot more.

For example, click on The Society Man and it gives the country (IRL) and a date of 02 Feb 2007. Note that if no country is given, it is England.

There is sometimes a problem. In the above race, click on 'Oranger', you will get a country of France and a birth date of 01 Jan 2002. Some overseas countries do not register the actual birth date, just the fictitious date.

One word of warning, as well as ignoring dates of 1 Jan, also ignore 1 Aug for horses born in Australia or New Zealand. They use a fictitious date of 1 Aug in the same way as the northern hemisphere use 1 Jan.

Thanks, that's all really useful - especially the example of how to follow the links. I came across that site earlier but the info didn't mean much to me without these explanations. I'll look for the race times later in the week.

GB, is it only dates of 1 Jan and 1 Aug we need to be careful about? Using a google search as I did earlier, it is easy to check that Oranger was born on 29 April 2002, so in those cases the birth charts still seem to be available. Good to know this!

Yes, as far as I know.
As you have found, some sources give 1 Jan when a real birth date is known, so you have to search for the real date sometimes. But then, finding birth dates is what astrologers are good at

I have been thinking about the problem Deb had with the 1.45 at Kelso on Saturday: Endeavor versus the actual winner Captain Brown.

Looking for transits to the natal chart of the horse, the problem we will always face is that we do not know the natal angles or Fortuna. I suspect there might have been a transit to natal Fortuna for Captain Brown - we can't know.

Looking at the horse names we have Endeavor signified by Mars, but Captains are also signified by Mars traditionally, so we have issues with Mars being strong in the race chart - it could help either horse.

Knowing the result, I can make an argument for Captain Brown - particularly it being at reasonable odds, but Endeavor being an outsider with a poor record.

Overall, I think it is just something that happens when you don't know the birth time.

I totally agree with everything you say. I think it is necessary to keep expectations restrained because of this, but if this approach brings better than average results over time, then I I'm sure I could learn a lot from it. I don't know if its a good thing or not to be ignorant of horse's previous record, but I imagine this is where group discussion could get very helpful.

My wife and I (she is the gambler and also an astrologer!) have been following races over the last few months and have observed some of the following as to why the obvious ‘astrological pick’ does not win.

Sometimes the energy of the moment triggers some other significator, for example when the Moon or Venus is strong a female jockey wins, or the only mare in the race does. We’ve even seen a day when the Moon was particularly dignified and a female trainer won most of the races at a meeting.

A planet rising or culminating can also indicate the jockey’s silks colours but again not always. Jupiter has been rising and the winner is in purple. But invariably there are a couple of other jockeys also in purple- so which one to pick?!

We’ve found it fascinating to try and work out why the astrological energy of the moment triggers in the above ways rather than the horse’s name.

The planetary hour just changing at a race time also seems to intensify the planet concerned.

Anyone following the form of trainers, jockeys etc., will also know that they can have a lucky run which leads to having the birth data for breeders, trainers, jockeys or even founding dates for stables. These kind of runs do seem to trump other factors sometimes.

Deb- a round robin certainly sounds worth trying, we normally do each ways and each way doubles!

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